“So,” she said. “Aren’t you going to ask me where I’ve been?”
Ellie shrugged.
“I’ve been to my boyfriend’s flat,” she said. “Did I tell you I have a boyfriend?”
“No.”
“I bet you can’t believe it, can you? Boring old Noelle the tutor. Having a boyfriend. I mean, he’s not a patch on your fella. Obviously not. But he’s a god to me. Cleverest human being I’ve ever met. No idea what he sees in me, of course.”
“You look very nice tonight,” said Ellie, obsequious in the wake of Noelle’s slap to her cheek earlier on.
Noelle glanced at her. “Oh, you little sweetie. Ido not. But thank you.”
Ellie smiled tightly.
“Anyway, how has your evening been?”
Ellie shrugged and said, “OK.”
Noelle glanced around the room then and sighed. “I was thinking maybe I could fix you up with a TV and a DVD player. You can get one of those little all-in-one things for next to nothing these days. It might mean less treats and what have you for a while. But better than staring at these four walls for hours on end. What do you think?”
Ellie blinked. A DVD player. Movies. Documentaries. “Yes, please, thank you, yes.”
“And some books, too? Would you like some books to read?”
“Yes. I would. I’d love some books.”
Noelle smiled fondly at her. “Books then,” she said. “I’ll pick some up from the Red Cross shop. And some DVDs. We’ll make it nice in here for you. We’ll make it as good as home.”
She got to her feet then and looked down at Ellie and said, “It’s all coming together now. I can feel it. It’s all coming together. Just you wait.”
Ellie watched her fiddle clumsily with the key in the lock. She sensed a moment of vulnerability. She played with the idea of ambushing her. Throwing herself upon her, slamming her drunken, makeup-smeared face into the wall, once, twice, three times, grabbing the key from her, shoving it hard into the lock, turning, opening, running, running, running. But even as the thought showed itself to her, the door clicked open and Noelle Donnelly was passing through it and then slamming it shut behind her and then she was gone.
“Mummy,” Ellie whispered into the palms of her hands. “Mummy.”
Ellie would never really know what happened the following night. She could guess, because of what happened afterward, but the actual facts, the details, only one person knew, and she would never tell her.
Noelle came down with her supper at six o’clock. It was chicken nuggets and chips with a perfunctory spoonful of mixed peas and sweet corn on the side. There was a big cream bun on the tray, a small bowl of jelly beans, and a glass of Coke with a slice of lemon in it. Noelle cooked for her as though she was five years old. Ellie ached for a bit of sushi, or some garlic prawns and rice from the posh Chinese up the road.
Noelle stayed a while that evening. She’d brought Ellie a new book and some fancy shampoo. She seemed to be in a sparkling mood.
“How’s the dinner?” she asked.
“It’s nice, thank you.”
“You’re so lucky,” she said. “At your age you can eat and eat and eat and never gain an ounce.”
“But you’re very slim.”
“Well, yes, but that is purely because I barely eat. When I turned forty, oh”—she made a circle of her mouth—“what a shock that was. No more cream buns for me. And the older you get, the worse it gets. I’ll be living on water and air by the time I’m fifty at this rate.”
“How old are you?”
“Too old,” she said. “Far too old. I’m forty-five. What a silly-sounding age that is, to be sure.”
“It’s not that old.”
“Well, love you for saying that, but all the same itisthat old. Particularly when it comes to certain things.”